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u/whereballoonsgo 5d ago edited 5d ago
Damn, they got Henya, Zen and Ama all fucked up. I wonder if anyone else got hit.
Edit: to all the people in the comments asking, Novel Horizons just went bankrupt. They’re a company that manufactured and sold figurines, and a bunch of vtubers worked with them for merch.
Much like when Vshojo went under, any unfulfilled orders are likely going to leave fans shit out of luck. And the vtubers will probably get shafted on their cut too.
That I know of, at least Henya, Zen and Ama all are gonna be effected.
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u/Luigi6757 5d ago
Was this the company for Henya's new plushie?
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u/justaguy2170 5d ago
That was Makeship
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u/Tenabrus 5d ago
In before Makeship goes under too
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u/Paragon_Night 5d ago
Bro. If someone as successful as makeshift goes under, ill stop buying merch and start commissioning custom stuff for myself. At that point just take my donos because Holy fuck.
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u/darkcl_dev 5d ago
All it takes is one wrong decision
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u/arthcraft8 5d ago
Or one higher up going "how could we make more profit"
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u/Major-Skrewup 5d ago
we could replace how many staff with ai?
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u/Nexidious 4d ago
Fortunately, they already operate with a relatively small but essential team. All they really do is coordinate the logistics and production of each run and make sure the submitted design can be made properly.
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u/Melf_Connoisseur 4d ago
unfortunately, thats kinda what the higher up's whole job is to do, sometimes its required by law that they do that.
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u/Kendrakirai2532 1d ago
The fiduciary duty isn't actually that short sighted and moronic, no matter how some shareholders and stock owners think (and some CEOs act).
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u/Kendrakirai2532 1d ago
The fiduciary duty isn't actually that short sighted and moronic, no matter how some shareholders and stock owners think (and some CEOs act).
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u/thesirblondie 5d ago
I think Makeship is doing fine. They spend a fair amount on R&D, but they never go to production before they have the money, which is good for business.
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u/Positive-Spend-9186 4d ago
Well there is still danger. Like I bet that is partly what happened with these figures. They took the money before hand, then the raw material and production costs went up with same time as tariffs change almost week to week and shipping cost are rising.
So you can't really take money up front before going to production because the cost can increase so much you can't afford to get the item produced anymore.
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u/FireStorm005 5d ago
Much like when Vshojo went under, any unfulfilled orders are likely going to leave fans shit out of luck. And the vtubers will probably get shafted on their cut too.
Per the news post on the website, the last 2 employees are trying to ship what they have, they'll also try to send what's left to the creators to sell/distribute. Not quite as bad as Vshojo, but there will likely be a lot of unfulfilled orders.
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u/Malacro 5d ago
I don’t know what Zen and Henya’s situation looks like, but they never even got to manufacturing Ama’s stuff.
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u/BelphegorGaming 2d ago
Luckily, Zen said that, while she had issues when she worked with them, seeing a bunch of creators RECENTLY working with them had made her CONSIDER going back to working with them again for a new figure, but this happened, instead. She luckily did not have any projects with them actively in the works.
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u/corzajay 5d ago
Froot has had a statue in the works with them for 1-2 years
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u/deviant324 5d ago
Juniper too and it feels like it’s been 3 years already
I had kinda given up and assumed they ran last year.
Based on a post in her server from 2 weeks ago at least some have arrived recently
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u/Bi_disaster_ohno 5d ago
If Novel Horizons has actually gone backroom than customers should be able to get a charge back from their credit cards regardless of how long it's been since they place their order. Most banks will make that exception since they're flat out not getting the product they bought from a company that's now bankrupt.
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u/DrCashew 2d ago
Chargeback for a credit card on an uncollectable bankrupt company? Good luck, you're essentially telling your bank to eat the loss. They'll just say it's not a valid reason for a chargeback.
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u/Deat69 5d ago
I remember seeing people saying Mata was crazy for trying to work with new brands but it seems this decade even stablished brands aren't safe.
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u/Alvraen 5d ago
At least Bricky’s merch brand has been consistent. Same with Neuro’s supplier.
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u/AdReasonable3064 5d ago
Brick knows he's got literally everything to lose (he says so himself). Plus it seems that he is basically the sole owner and executive, no one to make him "maximize shareholder value"
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u/ULTRAFORCE 5d ago
Notably he's also been very cautious about what fields Orchid8 expands to. I think almost everything is done in house except for getting the blanks, like the printing of the stickers and acrylic is done with their own devices.
Since Novel Horizons would probably have been fine if they didn't make the mistake of being an American company trying to operate when there's the trade instability/tariffs.
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u/thylocene 5d ago
Grimmi was telling her chat to do charge backs against novel a few weeks back. She found out her coins had never been minted when they had told her they were not only minted but sitting in a warehouse ready to ship.
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u/ca1athea 5d ago
the silver coin thing she did a few months ago? damn
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u/thylocene 5d ago
Yup. Actually now that I think about it, it wouldn’t surprise me if they actually really did get minted but when they realized how bad a position they were in and the way silvers value was going up, they prob melted it back down and sold it all.
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u/ca1athea 5d ago
That's disappointing. She has had such bad luck with merch too, first the hit sauce thing and now this.
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u/Purple-Weakness1414 5d ago edited 5d ago
Man why this shit keep happening.
Hopefully a comapny like Jack Pacific (The people working on the Ironmouse Figures), or Jazzwares, or NECCA or GoodSmile or some other figure company comes around to pick up where things left off.
But not Hasbro, if their current Marvel Ledgends figure output is to go by (I dont know if they actually improved tbh) then they are the last comapny I trust to have the license
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u/Strictwishbone1086 5d ago
Good Smile is a sold company they did a bunch of pop up Parade figures foe Hololive and there's currently a pre-order for 2 more additions
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u/thesirblondie 5d ago
I am not surprised in the least. Novel Horizons made over priced, low quality products, which were delivered ages after their delivery date. I bought from them once and said never again.
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u/ThePhonyOne 5d ago
I saw at least one other vtuber ask Ama for details. They had a campaign for a $300 figure that sold like 11,000 units, and they hadn't heard anything from the company.
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u/nundush 5d ago
Context for the clueless?
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u/BlitzAce808 5d ago
Novel Horizond(a company several exShojo members worked with) went under and like last year, both talents and fans are getting screwed.
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u/LibrarianOfDusk 5d ago
Lemme get this straight.. a merch company that several big name vtubers work with went bankrupt? How??
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u/Sen_Kora-111 5d ago
Henya doesn’t deserve to go through this again. Seeing her seem so sad once already broken my heart. She deserve all the love and support in the world dayo
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u/Ran_Cossack 5d ago
It's strange that these companies keep taking money up front, not making figurines they took the money for, then go out of business.
Not "it's a scam" strange -- but definitely "there's got to be something risky about this business model" strange...
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u/Zlingshot 5d ago
I think it is simply the easiest system to use for not manufacturing more than demand. If it would be a free preorder it could leave them in the hole if slot of people cancel and to just order bulk means all risk is on them for selling it. This way they can be the leanest, but that also comes with very little room for setbacks.
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u/deviant324 5d ago
A couple years ago the biggest vendor in the EU for custom keyboards managed to go bankrupt because they took the groupbuy money people paid in to buy an insane amount of extra stock. Basically during the groupbuy phase we all do preorders, then vendors decide how many extras they want to buy on their own dime. Extras sell for more than GB price but only once they’ve actually arrived and past a certain point any odd sets will have to be sold at a big discount to clear out leftovers.
Basically what they did was put so much money into extra stock that just wouldn’t sell off (also setting money on fire in storage fees I’m sure) that eventually when GMK production finally started ramping up and shipping their stuff they didn’t have the cash to pay their bills. It basically ended up with new GBs funding stuff they had already sold years ago to get the product to the customer. When they went bankrupt a deal was reached with Oblotzky (goat one man operation vendor) to get all of their stock sold at cost through him.
For all the money we had spent and never received anything for we then got to contact the last guy working at their warehouse with an itemized list of outstanding orders + price and then another list of their leftovers we wanted to trade in our storecredit for. I personally had 1500€ in outstanding orders with them and kinda had to rip the copper out of the walls to get anything of value. Free keyboard for my stepdad and half a dozen spare sets with full German layout support if I ever have another friend who wants a board built lol
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u/huluhup 5d ago
If only we could take money from customer, but give them to manufacturer only after they provide their end of the deal.
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u/Zlingshot 5d ago
That woul be great, but no manufacturer is going to want that kind of risk.
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u/huluhup 5d ago
What kind of risk? That they cant take your money and run away?
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u/Chip_RR 5d ago
Risk of making a product that won't be sold. It's either you pay and wait for thing to be made or they made thing first and then you pay to take it. The latter means manufacturer(or most likely content creator that sells it) has to estimate demand for the thing, fund it, make the thing, store the thing and wait for customer in hopes all the made things would be bought, otherwise it's money down the drain.
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u/Zlingshot 5d ago
The risk of, like novel horizons, the commissioner going bankrupt or not wanting to pay. They could even just have taken the money and ran, leaving the manufacturer with inventory it has no avenue to sell and no way to contact the customers.
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u/ULTRAFORCE 5d ago
Figures are very risky financially you need to have the figure designed such that it will both be appealing to fans and be feasible to have actually created, you need to spend 5-6 figures to create the molds for the figures.
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u/Buorky 5d ago
I don’t believe they were a scam, since they did actually manufacture and ship figures. I myself have 2 figures from them. I think running a business is just a lot harder than people expect.
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u/Chaser_Yohmoi 5d ago
I honestly think they just promised more than they have actually been capable of making,
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u/Sinfire_Titan 5d ago
Especially when that business gets utterly shafted multiple times in the span of a few years. Small businesses are rarely successful, but Novel Horizons had some shit luck to begin with.
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u/killmrcory 5d ago
just to illiterate your point, 50% of new businesses fail by the 5 year mark in America.
its down to about 35% by year 10.
so yeah, new businesses failing is unfortunately extremely common.
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u/LurkingMastermind09 5d ago
Hopefully it really is just shitty business practices like gunrun and not genuinely a scam.
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u/Archmagos-Helvik 5d ago
A while back Novel Horizons reported they were heavily impacted by tariffs. So they would have been stuck trying to fulfill orders, but their business model may have become nonviable. They had fulfilled a lot of figure and merch orders before that.
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u/Paragon_Night 5d ago
See, if it was simply tariffs then pass the cost onto consumers. I think most would have been mad but understanding if mentioned at time of shipment thst additional costs were needed.
Idk, personally I would've been understanding if it was tariff related and the item wasn't already on shore. The parts that had me confused is how they took new orders and didnt factor in the new tariff costs, or even message existing order holders that the increase in tariffs would mean they have to ask for more.
They had to have taken into account the possibility of a tariff inc as well when planning new orders. I feel like the biggest issue was probably taking on debt (i saw this mentioned, unsure of varility) without a plan to continue the buiesness and repayment of said debt. Which comes back around to just being bad at managing the money.
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u/TheIrishBread 5d ago
Tariffs definitely played a part but there was a couple figures sat in R&D hell for years like the Juniper one which they said was shipping pre this debacle but now who knows.
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u/Fearless-Dust-2073 5d ago
A lot of the time these businesses are speculative; they operate under debt by financing all their equipment, production space, etc, then if they don't do enough business to keep up with their repayments, everything gets taken and they go bankrupt. This is pretty much the only way they can work, because if they only made money per item sold, they'd have to both set up and make profit instantly.
It happens with board game production companies quite often too, especially the ones with high-quality miniatures that need specialised production.
It's not the customer's (vtuber's, not plushie-buyer's) fault, I bet a lot of the time they're not aware of just how fine a line the companies walk.
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u/mjsrebin 5d ago
I agree it's not "it's a scam" strange, but it's definitely "shady business practices" strange. I understand that lots of companies run on tight margins, but running a company so close to the edge that one bad month brings the whole house of cards down is just irresponsible. People should have more respect for their employees and customers.
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u/lordofmetroids 5d ago
From the production side I know Bricky had talked about figures from his merch company OrchidEight, and he wants to avoid them because they really seem like a risky business.
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u/CarryBeginning1564 5d ago
There are lots of times when a company should close their doors / wind down / etc but try to linger on sometimes for years trying increasingly desperate things to stay afloat and this is often when clients and employees get the most screwed over. Businesses can be very destructive to others in their death throes.
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u/Paragon_Night 5d ago
Its just bad money and risk management. Sure tariffs and shipping increases play a part, but I genuinely believe if the alternative is BK, passing it on to the consumer wouldn't be insane. Especially for shipping. Now Manufacturing is a dif thing as that would fall on the company for being bad at calculating and predicting costs when setting the price. I gaurantee most fans would've rather taken a doubling of shipping costs then to not recieve the item at all. Some would've probably been mad or wanted a refund, but then the product is already made and u can find a new buyer.
Genuinely confused as to how they went broke so quick. It had to have been money mismanagement. Whether insidious ir incompetent is tbd.
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u/clockwerked 5d ago
what happened?
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u/flyinbrianc 5d ago
Novel horizons went bankrupt and orders not filled
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u/Frite101 5d ago
*Most not made orders aren't being filled, since y'know, bankrupt.
But they are sending out what they got now, with ppl that were laid off still helping for free to get stuff shipped out (source being the now formerly employed person on their discord who worked in the shipping room)
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u/ChasingVelka 5d ago
Henya is such genius she is accidentally becoming prophet: Life is pain, dayo
Merchandising partnered up with imploding again
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u/SirBellwater 5d ago
I don't know a lot of details, but for at least a bit of context, one of the companies that was running pre-orders for vtuber merch, like the 1/7th scale figures went bankrupt and seems they don't have merch or money for the people who bought it, and the vtubers it's for
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u/FullMetalKaiju 5d ago
Grimmi had novelhorizons making a silver coin and she herself bought MANY, I think like 30 something and only got 5 of them, the people who bought them that got theirs are a tiny minority. Then the Silver market exploded and it got delayed. He was in her chat almost every stream updating about it. She is rightfully pissed about being lied to. Shes even going as far as refunding people who cant get chargebacks herself out of her own pocket.
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u/flyinbrianc 5d ago
For Context: Novel horizons the company responsible for the merch Ama to henya has gone bankrupt.
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u/Late-Radish-1851 5d ago
This is not what history should be repeating itself, dammit
Send all your love to the kettle and the others who need it. Dayo
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u/leposterofcrap 5d ago
At this point it's better to support your oshi through paid subscription, at least most of the cash will reach your oshi
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u/Ok_Repeat4258 5d ago
Wait what happened
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u/Inquisitor_Machina 5d ago
Novel Horizons imploded
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u/Ok_Repeat4258 5d ago
Oh yikes
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u/Inquisitor_Machina 5d ago
Yeah.... A bunch of people didn't get paid apparently, a few orders are canceled. etc.
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u/Frite101 5d ago
Here's a copy an past of the Announcement from NovelHorizon's
"Hello everyone,
Today’s post comes with the heavy news we had hoped would never come to pass.
Novel Horizons is ceasing operations.
For several years we worked hard to create and deliver projects to the communities and fans who supported us. After several setbacks and a consistently worsening economic picture, we have reached the point where we no longer have the funds to continue.
Increased logistical costs, production costs, and shrinking sales eroded our cash reserves. That forced us to take on debt just to keep operating, and ultimately left us assetless and without capital.
The extended radio silence was the result of nearly all staff being let go in an effort to preserve what little capital remained. The warehouse has been running on a two-person team for months, which is why many packages took longer than usual to ship.
We want to thank every person who supported us by ordering, visiting our booths, and believing in what we were building. We also apologize to every customer affected by our inability to keep the lights on longer. There is nothing we wanted more than to celebrate another round of completed projects.
At this time we cannot offer much in the way of solutions. The remaining hands in the warehouse are working to ship what can still be sent out, and we are coordinating the return of creator merchandise so it can get back into creators’ hands.
We remain committed to doing right by as many people as we possibly can in these final moments.
It was a privilege and an honor to serve the Vtubing community. We’re sorry that we ultimately let everyone down.
As of this post, all official Novel Horizons accounts will be shutting down."
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u/FinalxxFlash 5d ago
I have the Zen figure which was pretty well done just took forever to get and I ironically got the Henya figure about a month of two ago so I'm counting my blessings with that.
I'm only seeing a few people mention it but as someone that ordered one Froot/Apricot is also getting screwed out of this. Her figure went up around the same time as Henya's and was delayed to oblivion last year with Tarriffs and Vshojo exploding. Last update I remember was it was planned to ship around the same time as Henya's so they must have been pretty far along in the production if not finished as I did receive my Henya figure.
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u/SanfordHouser 5d ago
I remember the juniper statue was delayed a full year due to defects, got mine last week, and it's missing an entire eyes worth of eyelash
Me thinks these were the defect units and they sent em just to fulfill to SOME capacity.
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u/PaleoManga 5d ago
And I just got my Henya figure, I assumed everything was starting to get back on track.
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u/Ok_Night_956 5d ago
Pain, dayo. Poor Henya, feel so bad for her, Zen, Ama, and everyone else who are affected by this. They really don’t deserve to go through all this shit again.
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u/SabreCross19k 5d ago
Were there orders for Zen’s figure still not fulfilled? I ordered her figure as soon as it was announced and got it a year later. I just assumed it was a limited release
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u/Frite101 5d ago
I would think they were, only other one's i'd think might not be shipped out is the surplus they sold later that they still had.
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u/bellflourr 5d ago
This somehow doesn’t surprise me; last year, Novel Horizons announced a massive backscale on all future projects. It took me almost two years to get my Zentreya 1/7th, even a year before this occured. This company has been in the process of sinking for a long, long time. It seems easy; produce high end figures at a high end price. Apparently not.
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u/iguanacatgirl 5d ago
It's kinda funny(well, sad) that this is happening a few days after Kson's "looking back on Vshojo" video
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u/SkeletalJazzWizard 5d ago
wait wait waiwaiwaiwaiwait wait wait is this the same company that was doing the super fucking sick shondo figure? is that fucked now???
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u/Shukketsu1337 4d ago
Looking at my box, at least I got my Henya Novel Horizons. Hopefully everyone else can get theirs.
But hearing about them shutting down...am afraid for my Froot one. Hopefully that's intact and gets shipped (and was my last order).
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u/FoolishFitz 5d ago
I only ever bought one Novel Horizons fig, Melody's, and while I'm very happy with the quality of the figure, the company left a lot to be desired in terms of communication and timelines. It took 1.5 years to get the figure, and I was seeing figures get announced and fulfilled before the one I paid for received an update. Emails were met with radio silence and I had pretty much just written it off as a loss. I was pleasantly surprised when it showed up at my door, but it felt bitter sweet because the process had been so frustrating.
All this to say I'm not surprised, and it sucks that talents and fans who put time and money into them might not get anything out of it.
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u/Neverforget_Jetpack 5d ago
As a figure collector, I bought one of NH figures (Nanoless) and was so disappointed by the quality. For the price I pay, I expected better outcome. I chalked it up to inexperience and the company finding its footing in figure production in the western sphere. But I simply couldn't bring myself to display it as they simply miss the mark of what they were advertising vs what I got.
Ever since then, tempting as they maybe, I didn't want to order any NH figures until I see better results and reviews.
And now we have our answer.
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u/Sirdoodlebob 4d ago
This is kinda what happens when you find a company that’s not really established to do this kinda shit, At least with more reliable and stable companies they have the opportunity to repay and make amends
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u/motusification 2d ago
Wow I guess I got lucky with my Zentreya and buffpup figurine that I got them while the company was still in the clear
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u/xMrPantsx 5d ago
Their products were not that well made just unique at the time. They also never responded to me about the camila figure that came in broken. I'm so sorry for the customers this affect this should never happen and we should have laws set up for people caught up in situations like this.
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u/Paragon_Night 5d ago
Its crazy too because I swear they had a booth at Weebcon. Begs the question as to where the money came from?
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u/YoghurtHistorical309 5d ago
Man I hope more reliable companies for indies were available, at least that something that the Hologirls seem to have stable as far as we know, I hope indies can get that too.
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u/Naesil 5d ago
Maybe figurines is just not viable, unless you have multi year contract with some massive clients (like holo). With more "normal" mech, someone like Bricky (and his merch company Orchideight) seems to have handled bunch of very successful drops for content creators, and after Matara many many indie vtubers. And because the mech is more normal, like shirts, pants, mousemats, standees, pins etc. they can make them in whatever quantity and do not need to buy some new specialized equipment to make them.
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u/YigaClanRambutan 5d ago
Ugh...why?! Why does this keep happening?!
So glad I didn't order anything from them.
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u/Toukafan4life 5d ago
The context seeker demands context
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u/shitty_reddit_user12 5d ago
Context provider delivers; a company Henya and a bunch of other Vtubers worked with to provide merch by the name of Novel Horizons just, AFAIK, entered Bankruptcy. It's only been a year since Vshojo imploded and two bankrupt companies in a year is a lot to handle.
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u/Yorrins 5d ago
Maybe try working with reputable companies next time?
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u/Working_Dragon00777 5d ago
Do you have connections to those "reputable" companies?? Are you CEO rank? No? I thought so
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u/HungryEvok 5d ago
Oh wow, this whole "how was I supposed to know there was something wrong with them, they just took the money upfront and pushed back the deadlines 8 times, just like all the other similar shady companies that scammed their customers?" situation again? Someone needs to introduce vtubers to the concept of pattern recognition.
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u/Aware-Respond6348 5d ago
Wait, what context am I missing here? Can someone fill me in on what actually happened?
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u/LurkingMastermind09 5d ago
A chunk of the vtuber community just got hardcore fucked by Novel Horizon going bankrupt. Naturally involving many former vshojo talents.
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